The Secret Commonwealth
by Philip Pullman · first published 2019
2mentions
0recommended by
2HN commenters
2023–2025first – last mentioned
50% neutral50% critical
LYRA SILVERTONGUE thought her adventuring days were long over. Now a twenty-year-old undergraduate at St. Sophia's College, she could almost begin to doubt that she'd once traveled to the world of the dead were it not for the painful separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon. But intrigue is swirling around Lyra once more. Pantalaimon witnesses a brutal murder, and the dying man entrusts them with secrets that carry shocking echoes of their past. They learn of a city haunted by daemons, and of a desert rose said to reveal the nature of Dust. Even these small scraps of knowledge are dan
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It's kind of a shame the new Book of Dust trilogy just isn't doing it for me. La Belle Sauvage was interesting, but The Secret Commonwealth felt like it tried too hard, and also undermined Lyra's "secret ability" to an insulting degree.
on “The Earthsea Trilogy (2003)” ↗…articles, and the following books (not including ones I started but didn't finish): - The Tempest (Shakespeare) - A History of the American People (Paul Johnson) - The Book of Dust (Phillip Pullman) - The Secret Commonwealth (Phillip Pullman) - Valuable Humans in Transit (qntm) - Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) - Sunrise on the Reaping (Suzanne Collins) - Ringworld (Larry Niven) - The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)…
on “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” ↗